He sounds like an absolute ****. Is he involved in your DS's life at all? You did well to get out of that relationship before it was too late.

He wasn't always such a d$&@. For the first 18 years we were together he was my rock. He cooked, cleaned and always made me happy. It wasn't until we hit fertility troubles then finally had a baby that he turned into an a$&@hole. He sees DS under my supervision twice a week for about an hour or two at a time. I find it a real inconvenience as I'm also working full time to support DS and I. The ex does not contribute at all financially. It's also very stressful as DS doesn't really want to see the ex, and of course the ex considers it all my fault. He is also living with his new girlfriend and her 3 children.

It did change us a lot. Initially, the first maybe 2 yrs? the change was quite negative. I feel like there was resentment, exhaustion, miscommunication, anger and probably loneliness on both sides. We turned a corner when ds1 was about 2 and made a huge effort to focus on our relationship before trying for more children. We didn't start TTC our second until ds1 was 4 and we were in such a better place. We were a lot closer and truly enjoyed each other again. We went on to have two more babies back to back and our relationship has barely hit a bump in the road with these two. We are very much on the same page and have a lot of respect for each other.

We are still exhausted but we handle it better and know it is short lived. We also genuinely enjoy the family we have created and love spending time all 5 of us together.

How has your relationship with your DP changed since having kids?

There are times now I resent dh. Absolutely hate him.
Especially when he rocks out of bed at 9am on a weekend, I've barely slept and been up since 5am. I don't get a ****ing weekend.

But I see how the girls adore him. Watching him play and laugh with them. That fills me with love. Not the sexy I want to bonk you love, but a you are my soul mate kind of love.

Since kids I realise I could do better in terms of a helpful husband, but also I couldn't do better for a doting dad for my babies. So it's a more roller coaster love/hate thing now. Depending entirely on how much sleep I've had lol.

Ps- sleep is ALWAYS more important than couple time. I'm a crabby old woman without sleep, I can go without se.x When I was younger it was the other way around. ☺️

Thanks everyone for your honest and heartfelt responses. It's something I've been thinking about for a while.

It's really interesting to hear everyone's different experiences, and I'm sorry to the PPs whose relationships have ended, particularly in such crappy circumstances. Wow, @Waggers70 - to turn into such a d!ck after 18 years together - just wow. Hugs to everyone doing it tough.

I've been interested to hear about relationships that have got stronger.

As for me, DP and I have been arguing a bit - a lot more than we used to pre-DS. I think maybe pre-baby, we were able to largely do our own thing, and now, we have to compromise more. Like a PP said, I resent DP too, because I feel like I do more of the baby jobs, and more of the jobs generally around the house. My resentment is probably because I miss the amount of 'me time' I used to have...

My parents have offered to babysit from time to time so we can have a date night - but to be honest, I kinda value 'me time' more than couple time, and being able to leave the house more myself without DS from time to time (he's in a really clingy 'all about mum' stage atm) would be more valuable to me than date nights.

My DS is at such a cute stage (though clingy), and I think I want to try for another bub, but I'm worried about how we'd handle it as a couple, and the strain it might put on us, and on me.

I hear you, @Little Miss Sunshine. I value sleep more than couple time too! Really - I'm quite the catch

I'm more tired, more stressed and more on edge since having kids so DH and I argue a lot more as we are always snapping at eachother and don't communicate as well as we should.

The tiredness has also affected our sex life, so that part of our relationship just isn't what it should be.

But having said that, we value eachother so much more than before as we can see how hard we both work for the sake of our family, so I feel more like a team than we used to.

And of course our social life together has suffered because we can't go out by ourselves as a couple or with our friends as we have kids. But that's a sacrifice we as parents have to make. Don't get me wrong we still go out but not as often as we used to before kids or as often as we would like.

I've been interested to hear about relationships that have got stronger.

Ours has. Don't get me wrong, our relationship before and after kids hasn't been perfect. After kids we have far less couples time, that's mostly bc we have very little family support and homebody kids lol

But DH has grown so much as a person since our kids were born. He was much more immature, selfish and flippant. We were together almost 9 years before our first was born, so initially it was a shock. We were used to just us, plenty of sleep, and DH struggled the first 9 months of DD's life. But I put my foot down and said man up or get out. And to his credit he manned up. He's a great father, in some ways he's a better parent than me.

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It's changed in so many ways and and certainly had ups and downs but really, it's stronger than ever.

Navigating IVF and recurrent miscarriage nearly broke us, but we got through somehow. This is one thing I'm really proud of, it's a gut wrenching exhausting time, it drains all your energy, hope, money and patience so to come out the other side was a huge thing. A scary high risk Pregnancy and DP doing long stints fifo wasn't easy. Our DS was a ball of delight as a baby but didn't sleep so I didn't sleep for the first few years. He also turned into a tornado of a toddler so that often left me frazzled and overwhelmed.

I don't think we were prepared for how attached to me our DS would be, so that takes time away from our relationship but we really do try to make an effort to have some time together. Also important to each have a bit of time doing our own thing or catching up with friends. We don't get much or any time alone together in the evenings as our toddler is a fireball who isn't fond of sleep but we try and have lunch together during the week someone's, when I'm at work. My DP is a terrific cook so once or twice a week he'll make something delicious and we'll have some wines and watch TV. We have a lot of great friends and we really try to have a night out with them at least every 6-8 weeks. We also try to see our friends separately too. I think that's important. Maintaining friendships is really important to me, even though time is scarce.

It's not always roses, I do 99% of the stuff at home and the parenting chores, though that's getting better. I get tired sometimes. The trade off is that DP works really hard and so I only need to work 2-3 days a week and that's all I'll do till our kids are older. It was important to us before we had kids that it would be that way. We fight like all couples and we can both be very firey and make each other very angry, but on the whole, we get closer all the time.

Without a doubt our DS is the centre of our world, we have a bit of a different perspective, we almost couldn't have kids. We both do quite a bit taking care of parents and extended family, but try not to get overwhelmed by it. I do find I have to schedule us in time and dates, see a concert or a show, dinner at the pub with friends. We love having dinner parties. Those things are really worth it to keep things fresh.

It's changed in so many ways and and certainly had ups and downs but really, it's stronger than ever.

Navigating IVF and recurrent miscarriage nearly broke us, but we got through somehow. This is one thing I'm really proud of, it's a gut wrenching exhausting time, it drains all your energy, hope, money and patience so to come out the other side was a huge thing. A scary high risk Pregnancy and DP doing long stints fifo wasn't easy. Our DS was a ball of delight as a baby but didn't sleep so I didn't sleep for the first few years. He also turned into a tornado of a toddler so that often left me frazzled and overwhelmed.

I don't think we were prepared for how attached to me our DS would be, so that takes time away from our relationship but we really do try to make an effort to have some time together. Also important to each have a bit of time doing our own thing or catching up with friends. We don't get much or any time alone together in the evenings as our toddler is a fireball who isn't fond of sleep but we try and have lunch together during the week someone's, when I'm at work. My DP is a terrific cook so once or twice a week he'll make something delicious and we'll have some wines and watch TV. We have a lot of great friends and we really try to have a night out with them at least every 6-8 weeks. We also try to see our friends separately too. I think that's important. Maintaining friendships is really important to me, even though time is scarce.

It's not always roses, I do 99% of the stuff at home and the parenting chores, though that's getting better. I get tired sometimes. The trade off is that DP works really hard and so I only need to work 2-3 days a week and that's all I'll do till our kids are older. It was important to us before we had kids that it would be that way. We fight like all couples and we can both be very firey and make each other very angry, but on the whole, we get closer all the time.

Without a doubt our DS is the centre of our world, we have a bit of a different perspective, we almost couldn't have kids. We both do quite a bit taking care of parents and extended family, but try not to get overwhelmed by it. I do find I have to schedule us in time and dates, see a concert or a show, dinner at the pub with friends. We love having dinner parties. Those things are really worth it to keep things fresh.

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